It Means Nothing
by Kuruk
Summary: She tries to answer him, but no sound leaves her mouth. He looks away with a frown, and she cannot help that it does mean everything to her. It always will. — Ashe/Rasler.


_You buy a game, next thing you know you're writing FanFiction for it... and sad FanFiction at that! This is just a little angsty thing that came to mind, because I love Ashe, and I love Rasler (he needs more love) and I like writing about marriage so this came out. I do hope you like it. :D_

_Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy... :'( Shocking._

* * *

_**It Means Nothing**_

"You know that this means nothing, don't you?"

Princess Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca looks away from the jousting match below and into the dull, brown eyes of the boy sitting beside her. Prince Rasler Heios Nabradia stares back. His gaze is hollow, and it makes Ashe's skin crawl beneath the fine silk of her state gown.

They are fifteen and it is summer, an unbearably hot summer. They are both sweating, and underneath all the garments of state they feel unpleasantly sticky, yet they do not show it. They bear themselves like proper royalty-- all smiles and the unfailing grace and serenity that flows through their veins-- and they have been wearing the masks of their public personae.

Until Rasler spoke frankly-- the first truth Ashe has heard in a long, long time.

She wants to nod, to agree. She wants to say that yes, they are only doing this to present a unified Dalmascan-Nabradian against the growing threat that is the Archadian Empire. She wants to say that her father is forcing her into this.

But the stickiness seems to have moved on to her throat, and when she opens her mouth to speak no sound comes out, and she can only close it again before she starts gaping like a fool.

She takes too long in answering, and with a barely perceptible frown her betrothed looks away and down at the joust, where the Dalmascan knight, with one clean sweep, knocks his Nabradian opponent off his chocobo.

The Dalmascan side of the arena erupts in cheer while its Nabradian counterpart claps submissively, respectfully. Ashe claps too, the splitting smile on her face concealing the confusion raging within her.

Rasler does not rise. Instead, he looks into the crowd, as if he was looking at someone, and sighs. "You Dalmascans always get your way..." he murmurs, and deep down inside, Ashe cannot help but agree.

--...--

They are sixteen, and Ashe is gripping the armrests of her chair as hard as she can, her newly manicured nails piercing the fine leather.

She is in the royal box of the Dalmascan Theater, and she is supposed to be watching the newest play the actors have thought up, or some such nonsense, but for this one night, her mask cannot slip on. She cannot focus, cannot make herself assume the persona that is second nature to her.

The scene she witnessed over an hour earlier replays over and over in her head.

Him. _Them. _The passion and the kisses against his bare chest, as if he were a simple _commoner_.

Ashe blinks hard, willing herself to forget.

The moans and the way his eyes were filled with _something_ other than the dull apathy his eyes assume when he looks at her...

Her hand flies to her thigh, and before she can stop herself her nails are digging into the soft skin there. It stings, and tears prick at her eyes. She cannot tell if it is because of the pain she has caused of herself, or the inexplicable agony that tears at her heart within her.

The way he had finally noticed her. How his eyes, fogged up with heat and passion, had widened slightly. Their eyes had met, and as her vision swam with tears, his eyes were suddenly shameful, embarrassed.

Motion behind her, and Rasler takes the empty seat beside her.

A thousand words bite at her tongue. _How could you?_

_How dare you?_

_What were you thinking?_

_If someone had seen, it would mean more than just my happiness._

_Don't ever speak to me again._

_Am I truly so unworthy of you...?_

But she cannot speak any of them, because these words belong to a betrayed woman, not a bride forced into an arranged marriage... and certainly not a princess on who lies the fate of two kingdoms...

So she forces herself to stare straight ahead onto the stage, aware of nothing but his breathing, the way she can tell that his hair is mussed from the corner of her eyes. Tears prick at her eyes again but she blinks them away, false apathy washing through her like poison.

"I-It..." he begins, voice nothing but a whisper, "It was _nothing_."

Ashe looks down into her lap, where there is a single crimson stain, ruining the priceless dress with blood.

"Don't lie_,_" she murmurs in response, "Because I know that it was _everything_ to you, Rasler."

She can sense him tense beside her, she can feel the way his eyes fall to the ground and stare at it in shame.

The audience is applauding, and Ashe wonders if they are clapping for her-- for this tragic comedy between she and Rasler. But then the lead player looks up at their box, a brilliant smile plastered on his face. "This performance was dedicated to our Lady Ashe on her sixteenth birthday. May the Gods bless your union with the noble Lord Rasler, princess!"

The crowd roars again, and this is the perfect excuse for Ashe to reach for Rasler's hand and hold it. She cannot help but delight in it, and for a moment, her troubles ebb, if only a little, at the feeling of his skin on hers, and she smiles at the adoring crowd, better an actress even than the players down on that stage.

--...--

They are seventeen, and Rasler is leaving to fight a war the next day.

Ashe is pale as she watches her husband undress-- perhaps for the last time-- and a part of her, the part that keeps her sane, marvels at the way the sight of his bare chest still awes her, how sometimes, when he laughs and his eyes are alive when their eyes meet from across the room, her heart skips a beat.

The part of her that constantly torments her wonders what it would be like to never feel that way again...

When he is finished, he sits beside her and draws the covers to his stomach. He begins taking deep breaths, and Ashe can tell he is afraid. She is too, but for different reasons. While he is afraid of defeat and the dishonor that came with it, she fears for his life.

It is strange, being so awkward when you have slept in the same bed for months now. When you have laid awake next to each other for long, sleepless nights and have not spoken to one another to assuage the fear that torments both of you. When every touch that is supposed to be intimate and full of love is mechanical.

Ashe does not know what to say, but she moves forward anyway.

She moves closer to her husband, and she leans her head against his chest. He stiffens, but does not push her away. Ashe breathes in the scent of him for moments that could be hours, days, years... and then Rasler bows his head so that his forehead rests on her hair, and he cries.

His arms draw her close, and for a moment she believes she is dreaming, but it feels too real to be a dream. Ashe buries her face in the crook of his neck and allows him to cry the tears he isn't allowed to-- frustration at this marriage he I trapped in, sorrow at the loss of his homeland, his father, terror of facing death the next day...

She holds him for the waning hours of the night, long after his tears have ceased, and as dawn breaks through their window, he touches her and gently kisses her, it is not forced, nor is it mechanical. It is real, and Ashe's arms encircle him, unwilling to ever let him go...

"Come back to me," she whispers.

He looks into her eyes, filled with emotion she has never seen in his eyes before shining so brilliantly now. "I promise you."

She believes him. She knows that it is not love that he feels, nor that she does. It is hope. Hope that one day, the emotion that they shared for that one night would blossom into the love she longed for and the one he felt cheated out of.

He gets up to dress and she rises as well, pushing his hands away and dressing him herself. It is intimate this way, she discovers, that putting someone back together again makes you feel closer than unraveling them does.

He is about to leave when he pauses, and without turning he speaks to her. "It means something to me," he admits, "Maybe... a lot."

Ashe does not know if is the prospect of death he is facing that inspired that night, or if it truly is genuine. But she takes a step forward, frames his perfect face with her hands, and kisses his lips gently in answer.

--...--

She is seventeen, and she is cutting down fiends in the sewers.

Her sword dances around her in flashes of light, hacking at all the fiends within reach. When she holds a blade, she is not Lady Ashe... Lady Ashe committed suicide after burying her late husband. She isn't even Amalia, leader of the Resistance.

She is Dalmasca. She is its avenger. She will cut everything before her down in fury, in vengeance. She will cut until she sits on her thrown again, she will cut until her armies march on Archades itself, she will cut until her blade is at the Emperor's throat and he begs for mercy.

This woman is not Lady Ashe, or Amalia. She is strength, and she is resolve. She is strong and passionate, she is not the Queen of Dalmasca, but its savage defender. She is cunning and yet she is still proper, still bears herself with the grace of a Queen.

She is a contradiction, she knows this. But she is the woman Rasler would've loved from the beginning, she is finally a woman worthy of him.

The fury that roars within her hates the Empire for taking he kingdom, her father, her _life_ away. But she hates it most for stealing Rasler, _her_ Rasler. Her husband and the love of her life... and her _child._ Rasler's child, miscarried days after learning of his death...

A perfect little child... stolen from her.

She will never forgive the Empire for this. And she will cut until she breaks the Empire like they did her... but unlike her, the Empire will not rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

She will make sure of that...

--...--

"This means nothing."

Emperor Larsa Ferrinas Solidor of the Archadian Empire looks at his betrothed and nods a little. He, at least, understands.

Queen Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca of the Kingdoms of Dalmasca and Nabradia looks away from her groom, and instead down the aisle that will lead her to a new life, a new marriage, a new Ivalice.

She is twenty-one and she is to be married today.

It is winter, an unbearably cold winter, then again, it is always cold on Mt. Bur-Omisace. It is fitting, she thinks, though. A holy place for the joining of two rulers and their countries, an alliance that would forever ensure peace.

As the music starts and Larsa takes her hand in his and walks down the aisle-- they are the paragon of grace-- Ashe cannot help but think of Rasler. Only now can she understand how he felt that day, being forcefully joined to someone else that you did not love...

Still, Ashe thinks, a smile gracing her lips for the audience, she is not being forced. She chose this, in fact, her advisors recommended against it, and she had been the one to speak to Larsa about the benefits of an allied Dalmasca and Archadia. Yes, she is doing this because she wants to, not because she must...

She is doing it because it is what Rasler would do.

He did it once, married a woman he loathed for benefit his kingdom. Why could she not? She did not loathe Larsa, but she did not love him either. This time an alliance with Archadia would _ensure_ peace, unlike that alliance so many years ago...

And... she and Rasler... could have grown to love each other. That last night together, she had seen in his eyes something she had not seen that night at the theater when he was with that commoner, but something different. She felt it again when she discovered she was pregnant. She thought of how he would react when she told him, she dreamed about him holding her and their child and them falling in love...

Those dreams were shattered... and as far as Ashe was concerned, so were her dreams of love.

She did not want love with Larsa. She would not have it. She would be his Queen and companion, she would care for him, but she would not love him.

Her heart belonged to the boy who sat beside her that day in the sweltering summer heat, the boy who had lied to her on her birthday, the boy who had cried into her shoulder and had shown her the promising compassion that night.

The boy that turned to a man because of her. The man who changed her into the Queen Dalmasca needed.

So, Ashe thinks as Larsa says the two words that will bind them together, she would live here for the country that he loved, and she would make it so that it would never happen again... she would bind the Archadia that had taken him from her and the Dalmasca she had reestablished in his honor together, with that in mind.

And then, after she was done here, she would join him. And maybe... maybe, they could love each other then...

The new Gran Kiltias looks at her expectantly, waiting for her to promise to honor her husband forever. Her throat is sticky, but this time, when she opens it, she speaks, loud and clear, bluntly, just like he would've done.

"I do."

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_A/N: Saaaad. I hate the fact Rasler died. He should've lived, darn it... Like stayed in that coma, and then Ashe saves him... somehow._

_But, yeah, I do hope you liked it. And yes, there is implied yaoi in there. XD It doesn't have to be, I just imagined it that way. Feel free to imagine Rasler's lover in the theater was a girl, if it makes you feel better, though. :)_

_Hope you liked it. Please review? :D_


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